Build Background

• Discuss the types of fish students have seen. Talk about the different kinds of fish that students might see at an aquarium, a lake, the ocean, or a pet store. Create a KWL chart on the board and fill in the first column with things students know about fish.

Book Walk

Introduce the Strategy: Ask and answer questions

• Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title. Ask them what they think the book is about.
• Show students the title page and the table of contents. Tell them that the table of contents tells them what they are going to read about in the book. After reading the chapter titles, model using the table of contents as a way to think of questions. Write the questions in the second column of the KWL chart.
• Think aloud: The title of the first chapter makes me wonder what fish have that other animals don't have. I'll write that question on our chart: What body parts do fish have that other animals don't? The title of the second chapter is "A Horse or a Fish?" It seems like it would be easy to tell a horse from a fish. I can make that a question: What kind of fish looks like a horse?
• Ask students what questions they have about fish after looking at the front and back covers and the table of contents. Write their questions in the second column of the KWL chart.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Go through each page of the book with the students, using the vocabulary they will encounter in the text. Ask the students to talk about what they see in the photographs. Reinforce new vocabulary by incorporating it into the discussion of the pictures. For example, on page 8 ask: What things does this seahorse have on its body? What do you think they might be called?
• As you preview the book, continue to reinforce how asking questions about the topic and looking for answers as they read will help students understand the book.
• Model strategies that students can use to work out words they don't know. Have students find the word gills on page 6. Ask students how they could read this word if they didn't know it. Suggest that they might look at the first letter and say the sound that that letter makes: /g/. They might recognize the sound of the letter i in the middle of the word and the sound of the letter l at the end of the word. Read the sentence to them and ask if the word gills makes sense.
• For additional teaching tips on word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find the answers to the questions written on the KWL chart.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Give students their books and have them put a sticky note on page 8. Direct them to read to the end of this page. Tell students to reread the pages if they finish before everyone else.
• When they have finished, ask students if they have found answers to any of the questions written on the KWL chart. Model answering a question on the KWL chart.
• Think aloud: I wanted to know what fish have that other animals don't have. I already knew that fish live in water and that they don't breathe the same way you and I do. I found out that they have gills to breathe with. I also found out that they have fins that help them swim. I can't think of an animal that lives on land that has fins, can you?
• Tell students to read the remainder of the book and to continue to look for answers to the questions written on the KWL chart.

    Tell the students to make a small question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using word-attack strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce how asking questions and looking for the answers as they read helps them understand and remember what they read and keeps them actively engaged in the text.

Comprehension: Identify facts

• Introduce and model: Explain that a book like this one has facts about fish. A fact is a bit of information that we can check, either by observation or by looking at another source, such as a book or web site. For example, tell students that it is a fact that fish can be big or small. We could check in a book to see the sizes of fish, or we could measure different fish.
• Check for understanding: Have students look at page 6 to find the sentence that tells what is the largest fish in the world. Reinforce that this is another fact about fish. We could look up whether the whale shark is the largest fish. We could also measure a whale shark and compare its size to the size of other fish.
• Independent practice: Tell students to complete the Facts worksheet. Have them cut out the facts at the bottom of the page and put each with the fish it tells about.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the last page of their book to draw a picture of a fish they have seen on TV, in person, or at a zoo or aquarium. Have students share their pictures with the group.

Phonological Awareness: Blend and segment phonemes

• Say the word fish. Tell students that you are going to break the word into its individual sounds: /f/ /i/ /sh/. Have students repeat the sounds and then blend them together again to say the word fish.
• Give students the following words one at a time and have them first segment each word into its sounds and then blend the sounds together again: dish, /d/ /i/ /sh/; bath, /b/ /a/ /th/; beach, /b/ long /e/ /ch/; sheep, /sh/ long /e/ /p/; whale, /wh/ long /a/ /l/; chin, /ch/ /i/ /n/.

Phonics: Consonant digraphs sh, ch

• Write the words fish and beach on the board and read them with the students. Underline the sh and ch digraphs and explain that these pairs of letters each combine to make one sound. Ask students to repeat the words and listen for the sounds the letters represent.
• Explain that the letter combinations can be at the beginning or end of a word. Write the words shut, cheese, dish, and much on the board. Read each word aloud with students. Ask them where they hear the /sh/ and /ch/ sounds in the words.
• Have students write the sh and ch digraph each on an index card. Write the following words on the board: _ _air; _ _eep; _ _ip; _ _in; pea_ _; fi_ _. Say each word one at a time. Provide the following clues and ask students to hold up the card that shows the correct digraph to complete each word: something you sit in (chair); an animal that says baaa (sheep); another name for a boat (ship); the part of your body below your mouth (chin); a fruit that starts with p (peach); a shark is a (fish). Ask them to tell you whether the digraph is at the beginning or end of the word.
• Give students the Consonant Digraphs worksheet, go over the example provided, and tell students to complete the worksheet.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Verb endings -s and -es

• Direct students to the third sentence on page 7. Read the sentence and ask students to find the word that tells what the seahorse's fin does (beats). Explain that the word beat is an action word. Ask students to explain what an action word is. (It tells something that a person or thing does.) Write the word beat on the board. Explain that when an action word tells what is happening now, and does not end in the letters ss, ch, or sh, an -s is added to the word.
• Write the following sentence on the board: The boy watches the fish. Ask students to find the action word that tells what the boy does (watches). Explain that when an action word ends with the letters ss, ch, or sh and is used to tell what a person or thing is doing, the letters -es are added to the end of the word.
• Write the following sentences on the board and ask students to tell you which verb correctly completes each:

The shark (swims, swimes) fast.
The ray (moves, moveses) its fins.
The fish (passs, passes) close by.
The girl (rushs, rushes) to see it.

• Give students the Verb Endings worksheet and explain the example.

Independent Reading

• Allow the students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

• Give the students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Writing

• Have students write stories about a fish that lives in the ocean, a lake or pond, an aquarium, or fish bowl. Brainstorm story ideas with students to get them started. Tell them that the story can be funny or serious. Have students illustrate their stories. Display them on a bulletin board titled "Fish, Fish Everywhere."

Science Connection

• Start a class aquarium or a simple fish bowl. Provide resources for students to research what equipment is needed, the best types of fish, the care and feeding of the fish, how to clean the container, and any other relevant information. As a class, name the fish. Assign daily or weekly fish feeding/container cleaning duties.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the reading strategy of asking and answering questions to understand nonfiction text.
• identify facts in nonfiction text.
• blend and segment phonemes.
• associate beginning and ending consonant digraphs ch and sh with phonetic elements.
• form verbs by adding -s and -es.